The doctors told her she would give birth to seven children. A few minutes before the birth they found it was nine.
When Halima Cissé was pregnant she was 25, she lived in Mali and was already the mother of a child.
The ultrasound showed an exceptional pregnancy and a high risk. According to the first controls, seven children were growing in his womb and there was no certainty that everyone would survive.
On 30 March 2021, the government of Mali organized its transfer to Morocco at a clinic in Casablanca.
The medical team managed to prolong the pregnancy of five more weeks. A precious time, able to increase the chances of survival of children.
Then, just before the birth, there came the discovery that no one expected.
The kids weren't seven.
It was nine.
On May 4, 2021, Halima faced a cesarean childbirth at the 30th week of pregnancy. They were born five girls and four children, each with a weight between a kilo and a kilo.
They are called Kadidia, Fatouma, Hawa, Adama, Oumou, Mohammed VI, Oumar, Elhadji and Bah.
They were immediately entrusted with neonatal and incubator intensive care. They were tiny, premature and fragile, but all nine continued to fight.
Other non-upal parts had been documented before them, but no group of nine children had survived.
The children of Halima made it all.
Their birth entered Guinness World Records as the largest number of children born from a single birth and survivors, surpassing the previous primacy of eight.
For the first 19 months the family remained in Morocco, in an apartment equipped by the clinic and continuously assisted by health personnel. Only in December 2022 could he finally return to Mali.
On 4 May 2026 the nine brothers were five years old. They grew up, they're fine and they're getting ready to start school together.
Each one, tells the mother, has a different and recognizable character. Nine personalities born on the same day, after a pregnancy that even surprised doctors.
Their story is not just a record.
It is the story of a mother, a health team and nine children who, against every prediction, have transformed a birth almost impossible in a unique family in the world.
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